


I Hope He Buys You Flowers

by hideunspoken



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hideunspoken/pseuds/hideunspoken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt and Sebastian broke up, and Sebastian really isn’t over it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hope He Buys You Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Minor warning for mentions of suicidal ideation

Sebastian flicked the ash into the tray before bringing the cigarette back to his lips, a repetitive motion, interrupted by a series of deep thuds, each blow against the wood of his front door sounding through his apartment. He rolled his eyes and ignored the disturbance, burrowing himself deeper into the bed and under the covers, leaving only his head and one arm emerged.

“Sebastian, I know you’re home!”

Sebastian groaned at the voice. He briefly contemplated how long it would take to go up completely in flames if he poured a little of the vodka from his nightstand onto the comforter and  _accidentally_  dropped his cigarette. He sighed at the unfortunate likelihood that Blaine would force his little body into the apartment somehow, and Sebastian would just be left with some very painful burns marring his body. Besides, he was saving his vodka for the very necessary consumption that’d be taking place in a few hours, and he wasn’t in the business of sprinkling it about.

“Sebastian. Don’t make me go through the trouble of learning how to pick a lock,” Blaine called through the door. Sebastian took pity on Blaine’s inability to come up with anything but lackluster threats, stubbing out his cigarette and treading to the door. Blaine’s forehead was resting on the wood, and he stumbled a little at the slow swing on the hinges.

 

“Christ,” Blaine coughed, pushing his way into the apartment, waving his hand in front of his face dramatically. “The smoke is so thick in here I can barely see the opposite wall.”

“I’ve taken up chain smoking,” Sebastian explained with a humorless smirk, grabbing the pack of cigarettes in the bowl designated for keys by his front door and rooting around in the kitchen drawers for a lighter, trying to save himself a trip back to his bedroom.

“And why the hell did you start smoking again? You spent a full year, miserable as could be, before you could quit cold turkey.”

“Smoking is a socially-acceptable way to be self-destructive. I’m reveling in it,” Sebastian replied dryly, a brief smile flashing across his face when he found what he was looking for. He lit up, settling in to a dining room chair and motioning for Blaine to do the same.

“You haven’t answered a phone call in over a week, and you haven’t  _returned_  a phone call in twice as long. I didn’t know mentioning the announcement would mean… _this_.”

“I haven’t answered  _your_  phone calls,” Sebastian corrected, ignoring the last part. “I think your ego is getting a little out of control, Blainers, because you’re not actually the center of my world or anything. I don’t know how Josh puts up with your clingy tendencies, honestly.”

Blaine eyes narrowed, jaw locking. He was no stranger to Sebastian’s practice of taking out his own issues on any human being near him. It was as infuriating as it had been for the last ten years of their friendship, but it didn’t quite get to him anymore. He’d built up a sad imitation of the incredibly guarded shield Sebastian carried around with him at all times these days.

“So is this what you’re doing, now? Being alone in your apartment, being hateful to your friends, and breathing in more smoke than oxygen?”

Sebastian ignored him, focused on the gathering ash on the cigarette in his hand, the column delicately hanging on before spontaneously breaking off and crashing onto his table.

“Are you going tonight?” Sebastian asked roughly, breaking himself out of his trance for another drag.

Blaine sighed, fidgeting with his own wedding ring. “You know I’m going, Seb.”

“Why do you get to go?” Sebastian asked, voice cracking on the last word.

“That sentence holds the implicative that you would like to  _get_ to go. You really are a masochist, aren’t you?”

Sebastian nodded with a roll of his eyes, that kind of eye-rolling you do when your eyes are stinging and your tear ducts truly hate you and make you want to look as weak as you actually are, so you roll them back, a tiny attempt to control everything from breaking down, and sometimes it works. This time, however, Sebastian wasn’t so lucky.

He avoided Blaine’s gaze, looking anywhere but his big,  _stupid_ eyes, probably filled to the brim with pity because  _poor Sebastian_  with his  _poor feelings_  who just wants something he can never,  _ever_  have back. The one person that made him actually happy and made him feel like he was worth something, but he was too fucked up to actually deserve anything that good.

Sebastian stubbed out his mostly un-smoked cigarette, fingers circling the rim of his ashtray. He wanted nothing more than to pick it up and fling it with every bit of strength he had, sending it crashing into something, the wall, the cabinet, or even better, the mirror by the hallway. He wanted to shatter something, everything, into a thousand indistinguishable pieces until the ashtray, mirror, glass coffee table, crystal table lamp all piled into a mound of sharp glass littering his apartment.

He just needed everything to stop looking  _fine_. He needed everything to stop looking so untouched, like nothing had changed in the past year, the past couple years, even.

Because he wasn’t fine. Sebastian wasn’t untouched. He was so completely changed, more and more with every passing day that he fell further into the absolute despair that plagued him every second.

Kurt changed him absolutely. With every coffee date that lasted hours, each morning run that Kurt hated with every fiber of his being, every glass of wine, passed back and forth in a bathtub with more flowery-scented bubbles than Sebastian ever thought he’d be in contact with. Sebastian was changed. And it was his stupid fucking self that stubbornly refused those changes to actually be  _visible_ to the outside world. He fought each one, every step of the way. All of the things that were making him kinder and more attentive, more caring and loving, were still persistently squashed down because of his insane, irrational fear of appearing weak.

It was only when his actions cost him to lose Kurt that Sebastian realized what weakness really was.

“You guys just weren’t good for each other, Seb.” Blaine’s low voice broke through his reverie, and Sebastian came back to himself. He looked down at his hands, covered in ash from where he had unknowingly flipped the tray from fidgeting with it.

“You’re wrong,” Sebastian replied quietly. “He was the best thing, the only  _good_ thing for me. It’s me. I wasn’t good for him.”

*

            Blaine left eventually, had to get all dolled up for the coming evening, of course, and Sebastian gratefully retreated to his room, whatever mask he’d been able to muster up falling off his face, his anguish and depression freeingly apparent once more.

            He’d spent years carefully building up his façade, working on it like an artist with his masterpiece. He had become painfully skilled at keeping up appearances, keeping vulnerabilities at bay, so that for a long while he had forgotten what it was like to have to actually put effort into a stoic expression.

            That all changed with the crumbling avalanche that was his breakup with Kurt.

            He realized how every emotion he kept to himself and every single vulnerability he locked down played a role in their relationship’s demise, and Sebastian found his ability to call upon his shields withering away.

After all, how do you hide your weaknesses when every single thing about you became a weakness and nothing actually  _mattered_?

*

Sebastian was about halfway through the bottle of vodka, just past the level of drunkenness when he stopped recounting every good memory from his relationship with Kurt and started wishing the vodka would just drown him, because he was running out of nice things to remember. They seeped out of his mind so quickly he wept, past the point of being able to understand that the effects of alcohol was in direct relation with his recall abilities.

            It was the bottle tipping over, spilling onto his chest and soaking the sheets beneath him that got Sebastian to pull himself together as much as he could. He set the almost-empty bottle on his nightstand and peeled himself out of his shirt, tossing it in a corner. Stumbling over his feet, Sebastian made his way to his closet, immediately going for the little corner in the back that held the few pieces he still owned that Kurt had bought or made him. He often looked at them, threaded his fingers through them, even, but he rarely wore them. Sebastian was a masochist, no doubt, but getting through a normal day with a shirt that had  _Kurt_ encased in every fiber wasn’t something he liked to inflict upon himself. The past two weeks, however, ever since Blaine mentioned the dreaded announcement, were of different circumstances.

            Sebastian tugged on his favorite, a forest green sweater-type thing that probably had some technical fashion name, but he never cared. He only cared about that  _look_  Kurt got in his eyes whenever Sebastian wore it, covering up his awe with some mild compliment on how vivid it make his eyes look, regardless of the fact that Kurt himself had made it.

            Sebastian pulled the sweater down to his waist, running his fingers over the material and coming to a quick, not-so-logical decision. He needed to see Kurt, to see if Kurt got that look in his eye, because if he  _did_ , if Kurt could look at him just one more time with that admiration, then maybe it wasn’t over. Maybe Sebastian didn’t need to give up hope so thoroughly.

            He focused on getting himself out of his house, navigating the streets with the absolute minimum amount of stumbling necessary and starting towards Kurt’s apartment with a hope so strong for something so doomed that only alcohol could create.

*

He could hear the party immediately when the elevator opened, not so loud that it was obnoxious, but the chattering and music was a soft hum, reverberating in the hallway. Sluggish footsteps brought him to the door to Kurt’s apartment, but he hesitated, slumping against the wall and just listening.

A distinct, familiar laugh ringing out through all the noise was enough to have Sebastian staggering back, staring at the door challengingly. When nothing happened and the laugh faded away, he moved down the hallway, dragging his shoes against the cheap carpet and allowing his drunken reasoning to lead him on before ducking through a familiar door.

The door swung shut behind him, and he stood in the small room, scrunching his nose slightly as he took in the smell from the closed garbage chute that permeated the room. The smell would stick with him for an hour at least, as it did with any extended exposure—(of which he had experience. The quickie they’d had in there had been enough to have them deeply regret it and stick to apartment-only sex when in the building)—but he found the location to be his best option.

He situated himself across from the door, clear of the zone where he’d be at risk of getting whacked in the head. He’d take a little time, calm down from the urgency he’d felt during the trip over, and sober up a bit.

Now that he was sitting still, he realized how the world was still moving too much to be considered normal. Closing his eyes, Sebastian tried to calm the spinning feeling, forcing the shapes behind his eyelids to morph together into a sheet of still blackness.

*

Cold fingers wrapped around the side of his neck, gentle and non-threatening. He leaned into the familiar touch, floating for just a moment before registering his position. He sat, still propped up against the wall, his back hunched slightly, his entire body feeling like it was rocking back and forth, moving with the imagined motion of the floor.

“Sebastian?” a voice whispered through the air, an impatient lilt that made Sebastian think it wasn’t the first time his name was used to prompt him awake.

“Sebastian, wake up.” He ignored any hint of frustration and annoyance; as long as he could listen to that voice, everything would be all right.

Opening his eyes brought a bit of clarity, made his mind still as much as one’s could while drunk. Blue-green eyes bore into his, and Sebastian watched the play of emotions on Kurt’s face as he stared at Sebastian, crouched down in front and finally retreating his hand from where it rested against Sebastian’s skin.

“What are you doing?” Kurt whisper-shouted in the empty room, as though if he spoke in a regular volume, the entire party doors down would be able to hear.

“Came to see you,” Sebastian mumbled simply, his brain still working to start-up and function properly. He glanced at the full garbage bag at Kurt’s side, and registered his thanks to the universe that Kurt was the one to find him.

“ _Sebastian_.” And, oh, did Sebastian remember that tone. That overwhelming, disappointing tone that only Kurt could craft so well.

Nothing could make Sebastian hate his own name more.

“I have to tell you some things,” Sebastian insisted.

“You’re drunk.”

“It’s important.”

“So important that you had to come here  _now_? Tonight of all nights? You know, I never really thought you hated me, but now I’m starting to second-guess myself.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Really?  _Really_? Then pleaseexplain to me what you’re doing here, besides completely ruining my night. What could you possibly have to say to me at my _engagement party_?”

            And at that moment, seeing the rage and hurt in Kurt’s eyes, Sebastian realized that he has nothing to say that hasn’t been said. He could tell Kurt all that he regretted, all that he wished he could change, everything he should have done when he had the chance. But none of it mattered.

He was so completely entranced by those eyes, searching his own, but Sebastian found no trace of what he was looking for. He saw nothing that could act as a platform for whatever hope he held onto; so, he did the only sensible thing he could: he let it go.

“I, um. I see this was a mistake,” he said, getting to his feet and feeling just slightly more stable than he did on his way in.

            “Are you  _kidding_  me?!” Kurt shouted just as Sebastian had turned his back and reached for the door. “You—you do this, you come here and…nothing? You don’t have a damned word to say to me?”

He turned, facing Kurt for what he knew would be the last time. “I want you to be happy,” he admitted simply, truthfully. “You deserve to get everything you have ever wanted, Kurt. Everything I can’t give you.”

            And he left.

*

            He walked until his feet could not physically keep his weight on the floor and his balance was so thrown that he might have been spinning in an endless circle without realizing it. He walked until he had no choice but to veer off the sidewalk and sit on the ground to avoid getting trampled. He ignored the buzzing of his phone in his pocket, knowing without doubt that it was Blaine, who had probably heard by then what had happened and felt the need to go pick up the pieces of Sebastian’s heart.

            But there were no pieces to pick up. His heart had mastered its escape in a garbage chute miles back where it would have to remain, because Sebastian didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t have any use for something that belonged so completely to someone else.

            Once he regained feeling in his feet, Sebastian stood, and he kept walking.


End file.
